Lurita Doan

Lurita Alexis Doan (born January 4, 1958), is an African American, conservative commentator discussing issues affecting the federal government. Doan was the host of the weekly opinion editorial, Leadership Matters, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2009. Doan is a regular contributor to The Arena at Politico.com and to Biggovernment.com, and has published opinion editorials in major U.S. daily newspapers, such as USA Today and The Los Angeles Times. Doan has also appeared as a guest contributor on Fox News, CNN and other cable networks with commentary on fiscal discipline, government contracting practices, the federal budget and current affairs.

Lurita served as the Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) from May 31, 2006 to April 30, 2008. She is the first woman and the second African-American, to serve as chief executive of the U.S. General Services Administration.

Lurita’s tenure at the nation’s premier procurement agency was marked by a return to the fundamentals of business best practices and fiscal discipline that date to GSA’s creation in 1949, as well as a wave of award-winning, innovative ideas.

Lurita has received numerous awards for innovation. In 2008, Lurita received the prestigious “Friend of the Americas” tri national award for her advocacy and innovation for land ports of entry by representatives from Canada, the U. S. and Mexico. Previous recipients include Secretary Tom Ridge and then-Governor George Bush. Doan was identified in February 2008 as one of the 25 Most Influential Black Women in Business.

Prior to her tenure in public service, Lurita founded a surveillance Technology company in 1990. She was selected as one of SBA’s Women Business Owner Success Stories for its 50th Anniversary Celebration. Among Lurita’s business awards are the 2004 National Women’s Business Council Award for entrepreneurship, the 2003 National Director’s Award for Entrepreneurial Innovation from the Department of Commerce, the 2003 Committee of 200 Luminary Award for Innovation in Technology, and the 2003 Visionary Award from the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship. Lurita sold the company in 2005.

Lurita is a native of New Orleans whose home in the 9th Ward was destroyed in during Hurricane Katrina. She is descended from three generations of African-American entrepreneurs. Lurita holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Vassar College and a Masters’ Degree from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She and her husband have two daughters and live in Northern Virginia.

For months, pundits and politicians have been saying that Americans have a math problem. They have a point, for Mr. Obama routinely champions the idea that running annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion dollars can be continued, simply by requiring Americans to pay $200 billion in taxes more each year. Anyone with a 3rd grade grasp of math has long ago come to the conclusion that even if Mr. Obama gets his way, huge annual deficits will remain, and the nation cannot sustain the current level of profligate spending indefinitely.

Democrats have run a number on Republicans. They have skillfully captured certain words in the American lexicon and redefined them, applying Democrat-themed meanings for the specific purpose of cowing Republicans into silence and submission.

Four years ago, Barack Obama chose to use ten, grandiose, Greek columns as the backdrop for his speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. The staging was a rather clumsy effort to substitute showmanship and theatre to help disguise Mr. Obama’s hostility towards American enterprise.

In January of 2009, Barack Obama promised Americans an "unprecedented" level of transparency in his dealings with the American people and throughout his Administration. Almost four years have passed since that promise, during which time, Americans have witnessed an extraordinary level of deception and
obfuscation, all designed to divert attention from the Obama Administration's failure to grow the economy, their failure to create jobs, their failure to curb out-of-control government spending, and their failure to maintain American prestige on the international level.

Barack Obama was a no-show at the recent 103rd NAACP conference, but, clearly, he is being given a pass by the NAACP leadership. Checking the president's schedule, apparently there was nothing so pressing that he should have been unable to attend the meeting in Texas, but instead, he relegated responsibilities of the annual NAACP meeting to the vice president.

How disheartening to watch U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder maneuver, spin, duck, dodge and dissemble. Perhaps Holder still clings to the notion that he is serving the country and protecting the President, but his actions have pushed him well beyond that high ground.

Acts of faith are performed each day in this country, and we are all the better for it. But sadly, Barack Obama does not seem to have faith in the American system, nor does he believe in American exceptionalism, nor does he believe that Americans can make it on their own without government handouts.

The Obama Administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has requested all federal agencies to cut their FY2014 budgets by 5%. Not too surprisingly, these “cuts” are being heralded as an example of new, fiscal prudence by every Democrat seeking office. If only.

Barack Obama claims to be pro-growth. So does Greece, Spain, and almost everyone else. Why? Because admitting preference for the alternative—crushing, heavy-handed government interference that kills initiative and destroys wealth—is not attractive to any citizen of any country.

On April 30th in 1789, at Federal Hall in New York City, George Washington took the oath of office to become the first president of the United States. He took that oath amidst a widespread surge of popularity and consensual respect that has yet to be replicated in any subsequent presidential election in this country.

Barack Obama recently campaigned in Ohio about the importance of his policies, “investing” in the future, investing in job training, health care and clean energy. With so much talk about investments, the president seems to want Americans to re-elect him for a second term because they believe that these are good investments and that he has invested the taxpayer’s money wisely.

When in doubt, President Obama is quick to push for more government regulations as a universal cure to all problems. No matter what the problem, be it health care, financial reforms, small business growth, taxation, Team Obama tells Americans that new regulations that will expand governmental control and operations, are vital.

The recent exposé of clowns and mind-readers as critical support elements of government training at a U.S. General Services (GSA) conference in Las Vegas has served as a politically expedient way for Barack Obama to pretend to be tough on the issue of wasteful spending.

Barack Obama’s handlers continually seem to look for opportunities to create analogous comparisons between Obama and other iconic American figures, in the hopes that some patina of their greatness will burnish Obama’s flawed image.

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